Fast Blue Air nr 1

Elena KATS CHERNIN's Fast Blue Air, a work commisioned by FESTO, sponsor of Roland Olbeter's Electro-pneumatic instruments. This is the first of seven pieces, presented at the Hanover Fair 2007, at th FESTO stand.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Roland
• Olbeter
• Kats
• Chernin
• robots
• music
• Festo
• pneumatic

[FSSR]

I assisted her in the adaptation and I transcribed the notes from paper to MIDI-PLC to control the instruments and programmed their live audio processing. Then I filmed and edited this video during rehearsals.

I'm glad some of you enjoyed our work.

C.F.

[FSSR]

Thank you all for your positive comments. There's a lot of work and creativity from several people: Roland Olbeter and his team conceived, built and programmed the instruments and a MIDI to PLC converter, the incredibly inspired composer Elena Kats-Chernin wrote the score in Sidney before knowing the actual machines (at that stage she only knew a briefing of their possibilities and their note range).

[celebratingfantasy]

wow amazing.

[01FLHT]

Music isn't constrained to the instrument physically handled by a living being, voice or otherwise. Music composed, studied, written, rehearsed, generated, created, scratched by the legs of a cricket, or played simultaneously by the harmonizing sphincters of pigs is all still music. Those who believe otherwise are nothing short of elitist fuck-sticks the world is better off without.

[BlatantBill]

Thanks for this amazing arrangement, which shows the unecspected musical possibilities of compressed air in a technical environment. To my opinion, the composer shoud be able to write scores for a Dutch barrel organ too! These run on compressed air too. The response time for a barrel organ is only a few milliseconds... I wonder whether it would be possible to arrange a barrel-organ concert with score(s) of the composer? In the Netherlands, that would be a quite new experience.

[01FLHT]

Art and beauty are subject to the interpretations of the individual. To constrain opinion by limiting the definition of music goes against everything associated with invention, interpretation, and expression. Humans didn't invent music, they expanded it. Are song birds just birds?

[darbeel]

@01FLHT i know what you mean, but the essence of music is, plain and simple, a human invention. Why don't we call an alarm clock music? it is essentially an organization of sound, with a meaning and emotional investment. It ticks all the boxes of 'music'... except its not. Ask anyone on the street, anyone! and they will tell you a cricket, harmonising pigs or an alarm is NOT music. And ive never heard of a majority being elitist... Maybe you are the elitist. Prove me wrong.

[KingCrimson82]

sounds like a emmerson lake and palmer

[KingCrimson82]

hohoho,one of theese mega tolerant electronic hippys.

there is one thing people like you got wrong from day one,maybe some of these living beeing music fans talk more about the sound itself not if it is playd by a programm or not,some just want real sounds, physicly exsisting sounds.this does exsist and it is a real cool invention by the way,and the creation of it by human beeings and the week eating tuning of it really could be respected as an efford

[Fluffar0n]

I absolutely love this. Using automation equipment for things which they were never intended. How did you convert the MIDI signals? Do you have any place where I can read the technical specifications of this lovely piece of engineering?

[OrbitVideos]

I can't believe that some of the comments say this isn't music...

Anyway, the concept of engineering and programming to create something so intricate and subtle is mind blowing. The only way you'd ever get to hear this piece in this way is exactly is to have it performed as is. Wonderful stuff.

[Tiwake]

Get over what you define as music, you evidently dont know how things work in the world. I play the violin, am a machinist by trade and going to college for mechanical engineering. One thing you learn about robots is that they reflect their designers in such a way that no other designer, or group of designers could duplicate. So not only do these machines reflect the very essence of the people involved making them, the machines also reflect the composer in such a way that no human musician could